Death and Rebirth
by Yami Hime Hikari
Summary: A diaster strikes Hotaru's family when she is young and defenseless. . .


**Disclaimer:** I don't, and never have, owned Sailor Moon ('cept the manga I bought, which is now out of print. DAMNIT! I still need 3, 4, 5, 7, and 11! And the library doesn't have 3!) or any of the characters. I wish I owned Hotaru, but alas, I only own Grammie and the setting and plotline of this story. Follows nothing (not manga, not anime) and the Senshi do not make an appearance. This is the product of me vaguely remembering something a friend did for an English class short story and screwing with it so much that there is nothing of the original left.

**Death and Rebirth**

"Hotaru! What would your father say?" a sharp voice snapped as a dark-haired young girl tried to sneak a cookie before dinner.

"That I won't be able to finish my dinner if I have one?" Hotaru asked, not sure if she'd gotten it right.

"So stop trying to take those cookies," her ebony-haired woman scolded her daughter. Her eyes were red from crying constantly and Hotaru noticed this, deciding quickly to keep her mouth shut just in case she set off her mother's temper.

"Go play with your new friends," Tomoe Keiko suggested with a sigh.

"Okay," Hotaru called gleefully, hugging her mother before racing out the back door.

It had barely been four months, yet now Hotaru rarely mentioned her father, and he had left so recently.

Keiko thought back to that day forever burned into her memory…

±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±

"DDDDAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDDYYYYYYYYY!" Hotaru wailed, ever so tired of the fighting and pleading for her father to come out of his room. :I'll be good! I promise! Will you come out now?" she begged. "Mommy said she wouldn't yell anymore!"

Then she heard the sound of a gunshot. Being the young child that she was, she merely thought it was nearby thunder and screamed for her mother. Her mother hurried up the stairs and over to her young daughter.

"What's wrong Hotaru?" she asked, seeing the fear upon her young daughter's face. "What is it?"

"There was thunder Mommy!" Hotaru insisted, clinging to her mother. "I heard it! It was really, really, _really_ close. Why was there thunder in Daddy's room?"

"Thunder? In Daddy's room?" her mother repeated slowly. "What do you mean, honey?"

"There was thunder in Daddy's room!" Hotaru insisted.

"Souchi," Mrs. Tomoe called hesitantly, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she knocked on her husband's bedroom door. "What happened in there?"

There was no answer.

"Soichi?" Mrs. Tomoe called again, worried this time.

Still no answer.

Due to Hotaru sobbing harder because her Daddy wasn't answering her Mommy, Keiko tried the door handle and discovered that it was locked.

Damn.

So she went and got the key for the door and opened it. She could have used a hairpin, but didn't feel like showing her little daughter that particular trick.

"Soichi?" she called again as she opened the door, shielding her daughter from seeing the inside of the room… just in case.

It turned out she was right to do so.

Her husband was lying there in a pool of his own blood, having shot himself in the head.

"Hotaru," she managed to get out. "Go downstairs and call 911. Tell them your name and address and that your father… has attempted suicide. Can you tell them that?" She could not make herself say the truth: that Soichi had succeeded in his attempted suicide.

"Call 911 and tell the people there my name and the house number and the street and that Daddy… committed… su… sui… suicide. Is that right?"

"Yes, honey. Now go use the phone."

"Okay, Mommy," Hotaru said, sure that her mother had everything under control, even if it felt like something bad had happened. "What's suicide mean?" she asked.

"Maybe later," Mrs. Tomoe responded. "Now GO USE THE PHONE!"

Hotaru ran to do as her mother had ordered.

Once the ambulance showed up, Hotaru and her mother were ushered away, Hotaru wanting to know where Daddy was and why all those people were going in his room. Her mother couldn't answer.

"Mommy, can we go see Grammie?" Hotaru finally asked. Grammie was her Daddy's Mommy.

"All… Alright honey," Keiko finally said. "We'll go see Grammie."

They went over there and Mrs. Tomoe broke the news to her husband's mother. They both started sobbing and forgot about Hotaru until they felt her little hand patting there wet cheeks, trying to make the wet tears go away so they wouldn't be sad anymore.

"May we stay overnight?" Keiko asked her mother-in-law quietly.

"Of course, Keiko," Grammie replied. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Thank you," Keiko said gratefully to her mother-in-law.

Hotaru didn't understand all the words, being only four, but she understood the gist of it.

"YAY! I'm spending the night at Grammie's!"

The night passed with many tears and the explaining to Hotaru what 'death' was and that Daddy was dead.

Soon they moved in with some friends and Hotaru soon forgot why her father was always gone, so busy was she. About a month after that, knowing Keiko could deal with the outside world now, they let the mother and daughter get a nearby apartment.

±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±

Nearly ten years later, Hotaru found a picture of her, her mother, and her father together and couldn't help but smile. Her memories of her father had faded greatly over the past decade, but everything she remembered was good. Except for her final memory of that awful gunshot, which she tried very hard not to dwell on, always feeling as though she had caused her father's suicide, though her head—and mother—always said differently.

She was packing her boxes for yet another move to yet another small apartment.

"HOTARU!" she heard her mother shout.

"Coming!" she called back, hearing the drunken slur to her mother's words. Maybe her family life had been screwed up from the start, but really, she wouldn't be who she was without it and so she wouldn't have it any other way.

**AN:** What d'ya think? Just a one-shot thing, but I couldn't resist a happy ending. R&R please!


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